


A Song for Splendid

by hawkthewalk



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Physical Abuse, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-04 13:50:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4140117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawkthewalk/pseuds/hawkthewalk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The songs he plays for the Wives are softer, sadder, much older - and not about war, though Angharad isn't exactly sure what they <i>are</i> about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Song for Splendid

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this for a kinkmeme fill, prompt here: http://madmaxkink.dreamwidth.org/450.html?thread=160450
> 
> I tweaked the ending slightly before posting it here cuz i'm fussy. I think this is my second fic that I've ever put up on the internet for people to see! I liked this movie a LOT, you guys.

Maybe the Immortan is right, Angharad thinks as she watches the Coma-Doof Warrior tune his War Axe, long white fingers curving around its twin metal necks. Her eyelids are heavy from the sedative, administered by the Mechanic under Miss Giddy's apprehensive gaze. ("Don't give her too much this time," Giddy pleaded with him. "The music will do for her, it always does." To no avail, of course. The Mechanic always works to Joe's specifications, and that means a full dose, though it leaves Angharad woozy and nauseous for days afterward.) 

Maybe they should all be more grateful to him. It is by his hand they arise from the ashes of this world, nourished and whole. He gives them what they need, what they ask for. No one can say the Immortan Joe does not provide for his own.

No one can say that because if they dared, they'd be a smear at the foot of the Citadel. Which is what she would be right now, if Cheedo hadn't woken from a night terror and noticed Angharad's empty bed and screamed.

Angharad does not blame her. She doesn't expect their youngest sister to understand yet, what drove Angharad through the loose pane in the window (carefully replaced, like always, so Joe wouldn't notice) to the edge of their world. Where she teetered, briefly, in her bare feet, before white-painted hands pulled her back. The sickening certainty that there are a finite number of options left for her, and they grow fewer day by day, because -

"She's with child, Joe. Pregnant!" Miss Giddy yelped as he lurched toward Angharad with that look of his, wild-eyed and intentional, the one that still made her flinch in spite of herself. He stopped an inch away, his hand already open to remind her only he has the right, the power to hurt her (But it isn't true, she knows. There are still things he doesn't know about - the window, the sharp shards of broken mirror she keeps hidden, the words that pass between her sisters in the dark.)

He grunted and passed a hand over her belly before ordering the sedation and, almost as an afterthought, music. For the child, he said - but also Angharad is sure, because he knows she craves it. No one knows better than a warlord that there is as much power in feeding as withholding. He giveth, and he taketh away.

So here, kneeling at the foot of her bed hunched over his Axe, the Doof Warrior. Next to him a battered amplifier, which he kicks once as it crackles to life. His tongue flicks out against sun-parched lips and he starts in on a gentle, crooning lick that makes waves across Angharad's fuzzy brain. What he plays for her and her sisters is entirely different from the faintly thunderous echoes they hear whenever the war party returns from a raid. Those are the battlesongs of this burnt world, songs of war. The songs he plays for the Wives are softer, sadder, much older - and not about war, she thinks, though she isn't exactly sure what they _are_ about. 

Sometimes Miss Giddy starts from her needlework when she hears them, her eyes misting over. Can't remember their names, she says, but she remembers hearing them, as a girl, on the radio: a box that played music and told stories about the world outside. An object Angharad would pay for in blood if she could, but for now she must be content with Miss Giddy's stories, and the Doof's music.

She can feel his playing pulling her into sleep already, but she doesn't want to go just yet. She doesn't want to forget how she felt, peering down at the scattered lights below, wrappings fluttering in the wind. It's how she imagines War Boys must feel when they ready themselves for Walhalla. Fully alive, ready to fly, ready to die. Except it wasn't Walhalla she was seeking.

"Doof," she starts, her own voice sounding distant and muffled to her ears. Joe is keeping her separate from her sisters for now, and she needs to hear a voice besides her own - even the Doof's odd whistling lisp will do. He makes better conversation than the Imperator Furiosa, at least, who is sitting in the far corner watching them, silent and cold-eyed as ever.

"Where did you learn your songs?"

"Mother," he says, his red mouth crooking into a misshapen smile.

"Where did she learn them?"

"Hmmm," his breath rattles between fractured teeth as he bends a note and vibrates it, "Others. Before. There were others." 

He stops playing for a beat and holds up his fingers to show her, purple scars against the white. "They showed her. She showed me. We remember."

His fingers contain memories of the before-world. Like the words inked into Miss Giddy's skin. Like the pages in books. The room is spinning a bit, so Angharad closes her eyes and opens them again.

"What do you remember about your mother?"

The Doof inclines his head, looking as thoughtful as an eyeless man can look. "Shiny," he says at last, nudging the skull mask that lies at his feet. His mouth twists again into a lopsided grin. "Like you."

"You don't know if I'm shiny or not," she mumbles, annoyed. "You can't even see me."

"I know," he says, and plays on.

She tries to stay awake, but time passes differently with music, and with the Mechanic's Milk in her veins. She closes her eyes for a moment and when she opens them there are long shadows across the room and the Imperator is sitting now with her arms crossed, eyes closed. Angharad doubts she is actually asleep - she knows from experience Furiosa never sleeps on wife watch, even though she could probably get away with it.

The Doof is still playing, picking his riffs tenderly and methodically. Occasionally he croons wordlessly along with the melody. His voice is high and surprisingly sweet - it sort of reminds Angharad of the Dag's, who sometimes sings along to music only she can hear.

"Doof," says Angharad quietly. The urgency in her voice surprises her. It seems to surprise him as well, because he stops mid-phrase, placing a hand on the frets to dampen the sound. "Can you... could I see it? The War Axe?"

He hesitates, tilting an ear back toward the Imperator.

"It's fine," Angharad assures him. "She won't say anything."

The Doof licks his charred lips and shuffles himself closer to her bed, unplugging the guitar and lifting it toward her. She takes it by one of its necks and pulls at the yellowing strap, where she can read, inscribed in the Mechanic's greasy writing: _Angus the Great. Riddley Rocker. The Scream Queen. Thrak McThrasher._

"They came before," the Doof Warrior explains. "Played for him, before."

"What happened to them?"

He brings up his skinny shoulders in an almost-shrug, something she's never seen a Warboy do. "Walhalla," he says, but - perhaps she imagines it - with little conviction.

She shifts to hold the guitar across her stomach, passes a thumb across the strings like she's seen him do. He makes a breathy sound, like a chuckle, and points to where her fingers should go on the frets, one here, one higher, one curled back. She tries again, and this time produces a chord, soft and pure. She nearly shivers in pleasure. No one in the Citadel knows how to tune the piano in the Wives' Chamber so it remains unplayed, save when Toast plunks out off-key improvisations to annoy the others.

"Could you... teach me - teach us - how...?"

He shakes his head, but not unkindly. "No. Not for you." He reaches across and takes back the Axe from her, laying it across his knees to fiddle with the strings.

"Doof... will you be in Walhalla one day?"

"Yes. I am awaited." This time he sounds more certain, but does she detect a hint of wariness? She wonders if he thinks she would report his lack of faith to Immortan. The thought depresses her.

"What about me?"

He grins his gaping grin at the silliness of her question. "Yes! All Wives go. If..." He gestures at her stomach, and she suddenly feels sick. Sick, and tired of everything.

"Doof," she says again, and now there is a certain tightness in her throat, which she immediately recognizes and hates. She hasn't cried since... well. She would rather not remember it. "Doof, what am I?"

He stops fiddling. "You are Splendid," he says. He sounds puzzled by the question, or perhaps by the catch in her voice.

"But what am I... what are we here for? Just... for him?"

He stares at her - _stares_ is wrong, she knows, but he is entirely still and she can tell he is listening intently.

"Am I - are we... just things? For being used and thrown aside?" Like your War Axe, she thinks. Like the ones who came before us. 

He says nothing, his fingers unmoving atop his Axe. Suddenly he cranes his neck forward, and she does instinctively as well, nearly sitting up in the bed.

"Can I... see you?" he asks, almost in a whisper.

She nods, then realizing her mistake, whispers back, "Yes."

He sets the Axe down and leans in close, closer than Angharad has ever been to any Warboy. She catches the chemical scent of warpaint and motor oil, like Joe when he comes to them straight from the Workshops.

And now the Doof Warrior's long fingers are on her face, a calloused thumb tracing her cheekbone, her lips, the line of her jaw and chin. 

"Yes," he says after a long moment, exhaling as though satisfied of something. "Yes. You are splendid." And the word - though it's a name Joe gave her, one she has hated - in the Doof's broken-toothed mouth, somehow it's different.

"I'm not splendid," she tells him. "I never wanted to be."

His fingers move lightly, and she wills herself not to wince when they meet the scar tissue still forming above her brow. That was thirty days ago, before she knew about the baby. Joe was livid.

"Splendid," he insists, tracing the tender cobweb of scars. "And..." He is struggling for a word, she can tell, one that's not "shiny" or "chrome." The Warboys are hard up on words - the Immortan Joe has many, shares few with his followers. 

"Fierce," says the Doof at last. "You are not a thing. You are Splendid, and fierce."

"Angharad," she says, her voice barely more than a whisper. "Please, call me Angharad." She can feel the drowsiness setting in again, pushing her back down into the mattress.

"Angharad," he agrees, and his fingers leave her face.

He takes up the Axe again, then suddenly leans forward, his tongue flicking once more across his lips.

"Do you live for him?" he asks. "Only for him?"

Angharad furrows her brow, trying to understand. There is something new in the Doof Warrior's question - tight, nervous, almost conspiratorial. But his voice is coming from a long way off, and she is being sucked slowly into a pit of warm sand.

"Only for him?" he repeats, with a slight twitch of his head. He raises four scarred fingers, and she thinks, suddenly, _Others._ She imagines plummeting again, but just before the final impact she sees her sisters' faces. Looking lost and desolate as they often do in her dreams, where they ask her questions she can't answer.

She feels like he is expecting something, but she doesn't know what he wants from her, and anyway, the words won't come out now.

"We are not things," the Doof says at last. He touches his temple, the exact place she marred on her own. "We make things for him. But not everything we make is for him." He sits back, and again puts his fingers to the strings.

In her corner, the Imperator stirs. Angharad wonders how much she heard. It doesn't matter now.

Heaviness seeps into her brain, and the Doof's words reverbrate - _not a thing, not things_ \- along with the echoing chords of the song he plays now, which she has never heard him play before. Not a song for Joe, for Joe's breeder, for his thing. 

A song for her.


End file.
